My old XP computer that my wife used for wordprocessing and doing our accounts on has died.

It started switching off and rebooting for no apparent reason.
it would come up with a error message stating that a registry file was corrupt and windows had tried successfully to fix it......then it would continue with the Hard drive running. then stop and reboot again.

I caught the next reboot and put it to "start with last known good configuration" and when it opened I got an error ADECK "windows sockets initialization failed" OK.

NO network No internet and then yet another reboot so I unplugged it.

Questions: Is this old age or likely to be a virus?

In the past I have used old HD's as back-ups using a kit driver shell and wiring/power supply and leeds. This allows me to get my data back and then gets formatted as storage....cost £20...As a windows registry files seems to be the one corrupt would it be safe to do this with this drive. I really do need to get the data back and not any programme files as we have most on CD....Would running virus scan and CCleaner registry cleaner on it FIRST time opened keep my new computer safe.

WE have just moved and had a lousy month of one problem on top of another - this is the last thing we need.

There are lots of members savvy with pc's please help...

Thanks
George